NOTES,  10 MAY 2021

Welcome, blog reader, on Monday, May 10, 2021. I suppose everyone has settled down after the bishop's election and is now in anticipation of the bishop-elect's assents from the bishops and Standing Committees and her consecration and ordination as XV of the Diocese of South Carolina, on Oct. 2, 2021. 

It is time to check in on the crises we have been following for over a year now. We will start with the pandemic.

PANDEMIC. The trends here are mixed. COVID-19 continues to spread in the world, but to decline in the United States. According to our usual source, Worldometers, in the last month, the world added 20m new cases, for a total of 159,029,697. Also in the past month, the world reported 400,000 deaths, for a total of 3,308,277 deaths in the whole of the pandemic, so far. The epicenter of the pandemic seems to be shifting from the U.S. to countries as India and Brazil.

Figures have been declining in the United States for the past few weeks. The numbers of new cases have dropped steadily every week for the past month, now at a total of 33,476,781. The numbers of deaths per week have also fallen steadily, for a total of 595,812. Last week, the U.S. reported its lowest weekly death toll since last year, at 4,750. 

Our local states are following the national trends. In South Carolina, new cases have declined every week for a month, for a total of 584,517 cases. Last week (May 3-10), SC reported 4,244 new cases, the lowest weekly number since last year. Likewise, numbers of deaths have declined. Last week, SC reported 72 deaths, for a total of 9,592. Alabama has also shown a steadily declining trajectory. Last week, AL reported 2,421 new cases, for a total of 530,988. This was a fifty percent drop in a month. Charleston County is also reporting constant declines in reported numbers. Last week, it listed 270 new cases, for a total of 43,111. A month ago, the county reported 533 new cases in one week.

Vaccinations are accelerating. As of today, 114,258,244 Americans are fully vaccinated. This is a bit more than a third of the country. In just the last three weeks, 30m Americans have been fully inoculated. However, experts say the country needs to reach 70% to have "herd immunity." We are only half way there. 

SCHISM. Nothing new on the litigation front. No word from the South Carolina Supreme Court. 

The last time the Church diocese appealed to the SCSC, the court acted promptly. On February 3, 2015, Judge Diane Goodstein handed down her sweeping judgment favoring the breakaway diocese. The next month (Mar. 24), the Church diocese appealed the decision to the SCSC. Less than a month later (Apr. 15), the SCSC agreed to accept the appeal and set a hearing date of Sept. 23, 2015. 

This time the SCSC is not so prompt. Judge Edgar Dickson issued his version of Goodstein's order on June 19, 2020. The next month (July 27), the Church diocese filed an appeal with the SCSC. The month after that (August 8), the SCSC agreed to take the appeal. The two sides filed their briefs from then to March 4, 2021. Now, more than two months after all the papers have been filed, there is still no word from the SCSC. The SCSC does not have to hold a hearing. The justices can rule directly on whether to affirm or reject Dickson's Order. The lapse of time since the SCSC agreed to accept the appeal leads me to suspect they may not hold a hearing but go to a written decision. If they do, there is no way to predict how long that may take. One may recall, somewhat wearily, that the last time the justices were in this situation, they took 22 months to issue a written decision. We have no choice but to wait on the slow wheels of justice to turn. After eight and a half years of waiting, we should all be used to waiting, and waiting...

Meanwhile, we have a diversion with the bishops' elections in both parts of the schism. The old diocese has made its selection. The new diocese is just starting the process. 

The new diocese, the Anglican Diocese of South Carolina, has set up a Search Committee of 17 members, 12 men and 5 women (women have never been the majority on any committee of the breakaway diocese). The diocesan establishment controls this committee. It consists of 8 clergy plus Alan Runyan, the chancellor. This means 9 as opposed to the 8 lay people on the committee. One name not on the Search Committee is the Rev. Jeff Miller. He was on both the Search Committee and the Standing Committee when Mark Lawrence was chosen in 2006-07. Find the ADSC Search Committee here . 

According to the timeline , the list of nominees for bishop coadjutor will be published on August 1, 2021. The Walkabouts will be on or about 11 September. The election will be on 16 October. The ordination/consecration of the new bishop coadjutor is set for March 12, 2022. Upon Bishop Lawrence's retirement, the coadjutor will become the diocesan bishop.

It will be interesting to see the slate on nominees from ADSC. The Episcopal diocese had a diverse collection of five including two women, one African American man, and one openly gay man. We certainly will not be seeing diversity when the ADSC list comes out in August. We can safely expect all middle aged straight, white guys. Here is a picture of the ACNA bishops a couple of years ago. 

Of the 41 men here (women are not allowed to be bishops in ACNA), I count 3 "of color."

As all of ACNA, the selection of new bishops is authoritarian. The whole raison d'être of ACNA is to preserve (white) male power. Once a bishop-elect is chosen, he is not sent for approval of the majority of the bishops and Standing Committees as is the case in the Episcopal Church. No, in ACNA, only the College of Bishops acts, They must vote by two-thirds to approve the bishop-elect. The laity of the church and the Standing Committees have no role in approving a new bishop. This means that one-third plus one of the ACNA bishops can veto any bishop-elect. This rigid authoritarian system is meant to preserve the white patriarchy. The Anglican Church in North America was set up in 2010 to keep non-celibate gays and women from having equality and inclusion in the church. This was part of the social counter-revolution against the democratic revolution that swept America, and the Episcopal Church, in the late Twentieth and early Twenty-First Centuries.

Since the new diocese has a limited pool from which to choose, I expect the slate of nominees to be largely from the diocese itself. In fact, I think the new bishop will be someone prominent for years among this group, as the Rev. Jeff Miller, who was promoted from St. Helena's to St. Philip's, of Charleston, the plum rectorship of the diocese.

So, there is quite a contrast in the selection process of the Episcopal and the Anglican dioceses. While the old diocese moves boldly into the new democratic future and awaits its first female bishop, the new diocese will cling desperately to the old system of authoritarian patriarchy. This, in spite of the fact that the recent diocesan survey showed that the laity of the Anglican diocese are open to equality and inclusion for both gays and women. There is a gap in social views between the reactionary clergy and the ordinary people-in-the-pews of ADSC, even by their own evidence. One can only wonder where this gap will lead, but for now the authoritarians are in power and they will control the selection of the new bishop of this experiment in reaction. Nothing demonstrates the differences between the Episcopal and the Anglican dioceses of South Carolina better than the way they are going about choosing their new leadership. There is a stark contrast.

As always, we should remind ourselves we are here for the living of this hour, whatever it may bring. Peace.